Passover

Passover is an interesting holiday. Like any holiday, family get together to 
tell the story of freedom;  Freedom from slavery and oppression and the quest 
for a home. The meal called a Seder lasts anywhere from minutes to hours to 
days. There is an enormous amount of  food served in many courses throughout the 
meal and desserts.  It's all great, except, this holiday has a catch.... No 
leavened bread.  This means that you can't make anything that rises.  As such, 
all the food is matzah based.....yum?

The standards of a Seder are chicken soup, gefilte fish, chopped liver, Tzimes ( 
don't ask), Charoses ( chopped apples, nuts and wine), hard boiled eggs, matzah 
kugel ( quiche), matzah pudding, matzah brei ( omelet), matzah stuffing, 
chicken, brisket, sweet potatoes, macaroons, chocolate covered jellies, dates, 
figs, grape juice and wine.

We read out of a book called a Haggadah, to assist us in the telling of the 
story of how our ancestors were slaves in the land of Egypt and Moses got us out 
of there. Obviously there is a lot more to the story like how Pharaoh didn't 
want to get rid of his Jewish slave base so he said, "uh, nope". What was Moses 
to do but tell Pharaoh, look, let us go or I am going to have no choice but to 
unleash some plagues on you. Pharaoh said, "ha ha, I'm not scared of you!"Moses 
started the plagues like blood, frogs, lice, gnats, murrain, hail, locust, 
darkness. None of this worked, no kidding, so the final plague was to come. Mind 
you, Pharaoh was duly warned, but too selfish to give up his free, abused, 
labor. Sadly, slaying of the first born was unleashed. Pharaoh's people were not 
happy with him, needles to say, so he said to Moses, get your people out of 
here. Moses said, "ok people, let's move." However, Pharaoh, being an idiot, 
changed his mind and had the Egyptian soldiers follow and capture and/ or kill 
the Jews.  Moses was not happy at this change of heart. He led us to the water ( 
the Red Sea) and the people said, "Moses, look we love you for freeing us, but, 
uh, whatcha doin? Where are we to go?" Moses replied, "oh ye of little faith, 
trust me" and with that he took his staff and parted the Red Sea. Yup, it's all 
in the Haggadah, straight from the bible. 

The Jews crossed into safety, but because they questioned Moses, thereby 
questioning G-d, they had to wander the desert for 40 years before entering the 
Promised Land, but that's another story.

Why matzah you ask? We were in such a hurry to get away from the Pharaoh, there 
was no time for the bread to rise, so it cooked flat ( as a people, we cannot 
travel without food because you never know when you are going to be able to get 
a meal.  Historically, we are usually too busy  avoiding being tortured and 
killed.)

That is the very short, story of Passover. 

Lechiam! ( cheers)